January 24 – The Guinean government sentences to death 92 Guineans who helped Portuguese troops in the failed landing attempts in November 1970; 72 are sentenced to hard labor for life; 58 of the sentenced are hanged the next day.

July 10–July 11 – Coup attempt in Morocco: 1,400 cadets take over the king's palace for 3 hours and kill 28 people; 158 rebels die when the king's troops storm the palace (10 high-ranking officers are later executed for involvement).

July 19–July 23 – Major Hashem al-Atta ousts Jaafar Muhammad al-Nimeiri in a military coup in Sudan. Fighting continues until on July 22, when pro-Nimeiri troops win. Al-Atta and 3 officers are executed.

August – Camden, New Jersey erupts in race riots following the beating death of a Puerto Rican motorist by city police. Looting and arson occurred. This is a turning point in Camden's decline to one of the poorest and highest-crime municipalities in the United States. Camden was, however, the site of a 1949 shooting rampage by Howard Unruh, considered by some to be the first mass murderer in the United States. The riots result in the demise of Camden's Sears and A&P branches. Also in 1971, Philadelphia International Records is established, with Camden native Leon Huff as co-founder.

President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system. He also imposes a 90-day freeze on wages, prices and rents.

November 20 – A bridge still in construction, called Elevado Engenheiro Freyssinet, falls over the Paulo de Frontin Avenue, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; 48 people are killed and several injured. Reconstructed, the bridge is currently a part of the Linha Vermelha elevate.

During a severe storm over Washington State, a man calling himself D. B. Cooper parachutes from the Northwest Orient Airlines plane he'd just hijacked, with US$200,000 in ransom money, and is never seen again (as of March 2008, this case remains the only unsolved skyjacking in history).

A Brussels court sentences pretender Alexis Brimeyer to 18 months in jail for falsely using a noble title; Brimeyer has already fled to Greece.